The Crusades brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth.—Id.
Here the youth of both sexes, of the higher and middling orders, were placed at a very tender age.—Prescott.
Indefinite article.
436. The indefinite article is used, like the definite article, to limit two or more modified nouns, only one of which is expressed. The article is repeated for the purpose of separating or emphasizing the modified nouns. Examples of this use are,—
We shall live a better and a higher and a nobler life.—Beecher.
The difference between the products of a well-disciplined and those of an uncultivated understanding is often and admirably exhibited by our great dramatist.—S. T. Coleridge.
Let us suppose that the pillars succeed each other, a round and a square one alternately.—Burke.
As if the difference between an accurate and an inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble of looking into the most common book of reference.—Macaulay.
To every room there was an open and a secret passage.—Johnson.
Notice that in the above sentences (except the first) the noun expressed is in contrast with the modified noun omitted.